Court Orders EPA: Take Two Really Toxic Pesticides Off the Market

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Thanks to a lawsuit by environmental groups, the EPA has quietly banned one of the worst herbicides ever, after recently approving it for spraying GMO crops.

EPA is revoking approval of Dow’s Enlist Duo herbicide – better known as Agent Orange because 2,4-D is a major ingredient in addition to glyphosate. Approved a year ago, EPA now says it is more harmful than it thought – Duh!

The groups were able to take EPA to court because it failed to consider the impacts on animals and plants protected by the Endangered Species Act – which is required.

EPA told the court that Dow AgroSciences withheld data that showed synergistic effects from Enlist Duo, which makes it even more toxic. How about our government agencies doing their own research rather than relying on self-promoting corporations for that?!

As with all herbicides EPA approves for use on GMO crops, this one would be used on Dow’s Enlist Duo crop. The doubly toxic cocktail is necessary, Dow says, because weeds have become resistant to plain old glyphosate. This one is so toxic is kills the superweeds, now infesting tens of millions of acres of US farmland.

Some weeds have already developed resistance to 2,4-D. This escalating cycle of using ever-more toxic pesticides must stop – EPA must quit approving these chemicals, and USDA must quit rubber-stamping new GMO crops.

"With this action, EPA confirms the toxic nature of this lethal cocktail of chemicals. Glyphosate is a probable carcinogen and is wiping out the monarch butterfly; 2,4-D also causes serious human health effects, and the combination threatens endangered wildlife. This must not, and will not, be how we grow our food," says Attorney Paul Achitoff of Earthjustice which, along with Center for Food Safety, litigated the case on behalf of Beyond Pesticides, Center for Biological Diversity, Environmental Working Group, National Family Farm Coalition and Pesticide Action Network North America.

In another court case, the judge ordered EPA to remove Dow’s sulfoxaflor from the market – a neonicotinoid pesticide that is extremely toxic to bees and other pollinators.

The US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in San Francisco concluded the EPA violated federal law when it approved sulfoxaflor without reliable studies on its effect on honeybee colonies.

For this case, Earthjustice represented a coalition of commercial beekeeping trade groups, as well as individual commercial beekeepers, such as Pollinator Stewardship Council, National Honeybee Advisory Board, American Honey Producers Association and American Beekeeping Federation.

Earthjustice will be back in court soon to litigate against other neonic pesticides, Bayer’s clothianidin and Syngenta’s thiamethoxam.